


Pilimancy

by Kharnesh



Series: Lovelace & Bane [3]
Category: Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Clary Fray, Bullying, Divination, Elementary School, First Meetings, Magic Simon Lewis, Minor Violence, Pacifism, Playgrounds, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sacred Trees, Symbolism, Tarot, zen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 02:02:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8184832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kharnesh/pseuds/Kharnesh
Summary: Pilimancy - The art of divination through the use of human hair.

Simon finds peace on the playground with the help of a fiery new friend.





	

Magnus had laughed when he heard about Simon’s new best friend. It wasn’t a cruel laugh; not like the children in his first grade class. The cruel ones liked to take his glasses off his face and throw them from person to person, always keeping them out of his reach.

No, Magnus’ laugh wasn’t cruel; it was surprised and delighted.

“Clary Fray?” Magnus asked for the third time, dabbing his eyes free of amused tears.

“Clary Fray.”

It had been a day like any other. He was hanging from the monkey bars at recess. His fingers were bone white around the bar, and his eyes were closed. He was listening to the chirping and singing birds that were settled nearby. Mourning doves and white-throated sparrows haunted the trees, their songs and coos filling his ears.

They pulled his pants down from behind, his position making it easy for them to shuck him like an ear of corn. His shoes and socks were caught in his hems, so he was barefoot when he dropped to the ground.

“Simon Lewis, your face is kinda shrewish!”

It wasn’t the worst thing they could have been singing, but he much prefered listening to the birds.

Simon’s underwear were on display as he bent down to gather his rumpled clothing. They were green with yellow cat eyes that stared at his tormentors. Simon could see his pants-shucker advancing on him from between his legs. He was repeating the chant, arms outstretched, fingers itching to shuck just one more time.

There wasn’t much Simon could do. He could try to to fight back, leave scratch marks down the pants-shucker’s face. He had thought about fighting back, wanted to leave scratch marks down the pants-shucker’s face.

Simon didn’t.

Retaliation lead to retaliation. Adding to a curve only made a circle. Acceptance and endurance could break any chain.

Simon waited for the bite of cool air against his cheeks, but it never came.

He saw her from between his legs, upside down and beautiful. She was the High Priestess Reversed. She grabbed the pants-shucker’s hair, taking two handfuls of the fluff, and yanked his face down to hers. She kicked him in the shin, yelling as the side of her foot made contact.

“Systematic abuse!”

She pushed the pants-shucker to the ground, took Simon by the hand, and ran. His pants and socks and one shoe lay abandoned within the ring of onlookers. He held a shoe in his right hand and held her hand in his left. Her long hair billowed behind her, hitting Simon’s face straight on, obscuring all else. He could see nothing but sunlight shining through and setting his eyes on fire. Red and orange and yellow. Ripples and streams and oceans. He was enveloped in her flame, and he knew her. He knew her name. He felt her falling star burn the skin on his hands as he tried to hold it, tried to cup it softly to his chest, but she was a comet, blazing through the night sky, untamable. He opened his mouth in awe, and the tips of her hair touched his tongue. He could taste her divinity.

They stopped beneath a honey locust tree, inches away from its thorns. She turned to him and smiled. She put her hand out seriously, suddenly looking like she belonged in a power suit, complete with jutting shoulder pads.

“Clary,” he said as he took it. There was no twist at the end.

“Yeah.” She gave his hand a hard, but kind, shake. “Simon?”

“Yeah.”

They sat cradled in the roots of their guardian tree, still hand in hand. Broken off thorns littered the ground and speared through Simon’s underwear, piercing his skin. He could feel himself begin to bleed, but he didn’t move. They were safe amid the roots and thorns.

 

They were found eventually and escorted to the principal’s office. The pants-shucker was already there sitting on a plastic chair and holding a bag of ice to his shin. It was purpling like the skin of a burst plum. Simon and Clary were placed on their own plastic chairs set at opposite corners of the room.

Magnus appeared a few moments after being called by the principal’s secretary. He swept in, coattails flapping behind him. He looked like he had just woken up from a long night of partying. His eyeshadow was smudged, and there were traces of lipgloss and stubble burn at the crook of his neck. He had been chipper and clean faced when he dropped Simon off at school that morning, but Simon wasn’t surprised. Magnus could do a lot in just a few hours. If the woman behind the desk was curious as to how he had arrived so quickly, she didn’t let it show.

Magnus took in the sight of him in bloody underpants and pulled a plastic chair up to Simon’s, sitting lightly.

“Give me the lowdown.”

Simon did, and then Magnus laughed. It wasn’t a cruel laugh; it was surprised and delighted.

“Clary Fray?”

“Clary Fray.”

The pants-shucker’s parent was the next to enter. They leveled a glare at Magnus that he coolly returned. Clary’s mother come after.

If Clary was the roaring flames of a newly lit fire, then her mother was the low burning of coals. Calm, silent, and most likely to burn a house down while the residents slept.

“Magnus,” she greeted him, eyebrow arching questioningly.

“Jocelyn.” He smiled dangerously. “Your progeny and my ward find themselves about to face judgement. Shall we work together free of charge, just this once?”

Jocelyn cast her eyes from the pants-shucker’s mottled leg, to her daughter, whose face was twisted into something closely resembling that of an angry spriggan.

“Just this once, I suppose.”

Simon didn’t care that he left school that day without his pants on. His blood was soaked into the roots and thorns of the honey locust tree, and it would soon become part of the whole, making the bark thicker and the leaves larger.

Simon didn’t care that he was Shrewish Lewis to his classmates for the remainder of the year. He had a burning star in his pocket, and she was always willing to kick a few shins.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my mother for being my beta for this piece.


End file.
